KCRW BROADCAST #192 12–01–12

Fanatics! Here we go into December. A five Saturday month that allows for some serious concepting. I know I wrote you about our Bowie fest that we are about to start and so, tonight, we get to it.

If you notice, in our first hour, we have a lot of cool new music. Check out this band White Mystery from Chicago. I was there a few weeks ago and a woman I know there played me some of their songs. I liked what I heard and went to their site and got some of their albums. Here is where you can get more information: http://www.whitemysteryband.com/. Very cool and perfect for our show.

We spend our first hour in great mixitude. Some new Chain & the Gang on K Records and a double shot of Fred Sonic Smith right before Boris and we put this hour behind us.

In our second hour, we get deep in on David Bowie and his Station to Station album. This was one of the first Bowie albums I really connected with. This is the start of my favorite period of Bowie’s massive output. Station and his next four studio albums are quite extraordinary and to make things even more interesting and fanatic, we have located the original RCA German CD masterings. These came and went out of print very quickly and are much sought after by Bowie aficionados who don’t seem to have much affection for the Ryko or Virgin masterings that came later. I always thought the Virgin masterings were good but I think I prefer the RCA versions. They sound more like the LP. It sounds like the engineers left the source tape alone more than the masterings that came later.

This album was recorded and the now gone Cherokee Studios on Fairfax Blvd. in Hollywood. I did a lot of work in that studio, on an off for years. I first went in there in 1982 I believe. I did my last sessions there in 2002, when we recorded the Rise Above album for the West Memphis Three.

When Mr. Bowie was there in 1975 making this iconic album, apparently, he was not being all that good to himself. A lot of cocaine and the craziness that comes with it. He was rail thin and way out there. The players on this album, Earl Slick on guitar, Dennis Davis on drums, George Murray on bass as well as the great Carlos Alomar on guitar are on all of the Bowie albums we will listen to this month.

We started work on these shows over last summer when we found out how difficult it was going to be to acquire all the RCA masterings. It took a while but we got it done and I believe it was worth it. It was the Fanatic thing to do, Fanatic.

Hour 2
01. David Bowie - Station To Station / Station To Station
02. David Bowie - Golden Years / Station To Station
03. David Bowie - Word On A Wing / Station To Station
04. David Bowie - TVC 15 / Station To Station
05. David Bowie – Stay / Station To Station
06. David Bowie - Wild Is The Wind / Station To Station
07. Kraftwerk – Ruckzuck / Kraftwerk 1